Work has begun on production drilling at the Gazprom Neft Novoportovskoye field. A total nine wells are to be drilled to the end of this year: a three-year development plan at Novy Port, scheduled to run to 2016, envisages the construction of five multi-well pads and the drilling of 60 wells.

Over the past year Gazprom Neft Novy Port (a Gazprom Neft subsidiary and operator on the project) has completed a drilling programme as part of pilot production at the field, drilling eight production wells and conducting testing of 17 exploratory wells, as well as completing 10 fracking operations — the latter involving the testing of multi-stage fracking technologies, for the first time. Some 35,000 tonnes of oil were transported from Novy Port in winter 2014, much of this across winter ice roads, with the crude delivered to the rail station at Payuta for onward shipment to end-users.

The Novoprotovskoye field is one of the most significant currently under development in the Yamalo-Nenetsk Autonomous Region. Recoverable C1 and C2 reserves are estimated at more than 250 million tonnes of crude and condensate, as well as more than 320 billion cubic metres of gas (including Paleozoic deposits). Construction of the necessary infrastructure to allow full field development at Novy Port is ongoing: in the long term, oil will be transported via a transhipment complex at Cape Kamenny, construction of which is due for completion by end-2015, with the field and the terminal connected by a 100-metre oil pipeline.

First Deputy CEO Vadim Yakovlev commented: “The commencement of development drilling at Novy Port marks another major step forward in the development of this field. Completion of this programme will allow us to prepare the Novoportovskoye field prior to its being put into commercial production, commencement of which is scheduled for the end of next year.”